


Awake & Dreaming

by retrovertigo (ellameno)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Deadlights (IT), Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, M/M, Memory Magic, Post-Canon, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-01
Updated: 2020-04-01
Packaged: 2021-02-22 22:28:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23434702
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellameno/pseuds/retrovertigo
Summary: “Fuck you, Derry, and the state of Maine, and your fucking infrastructure,” Richie cursed as he stumbled along the crumbling road, likely unpaved since the days he and his friends aimlessly rode their bikes.They once dreamed of being orphaned vagabonds, for hours on end, pedaling towards a bigger brighter future. Now they were all parentless, wandering, looking for meaning and seeing nothing but a steep cliff with no water to break their fall.Nobody rode bikes in Derry anymore. There were a lot of things missing from his hometown. And from the world.Back at the town house, Richie attempts to pick up the pieces of their final ordeal, but all is not as it seems.
Relationships: Bill Denbrough & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 9
Kudos: 58





	Awake & Dreaming

**Author's Note:**

> This is something I posted 3 months ago on my private page and decided to bring here since I haven't been active on here in a while. Kinda proud of it?
> 
> Title from a Future Islands song
> 
> CWs: Drinking, blacking out, mentions of vomit and blood, general grieving stuff

Two beers into a six-pack and Richie was already a bit out of his head. Where did he even _get_ the six-pack? The cardboard packaging cut into his fingers as he kept walking. Despite being a wreck, he was still responsible enough not to drive. He doubted this shithole town had a ride-share service, and his phone was fucking waterlogged anyway.

“Have another beer. You’ll be back at the Town House before you know it,” he muttered under his breath. “Just one foot in front of the other.”

Said foot tripped on something and the beer bottles clattered out of his grip, smashing onto the ground. Richie watched the liquid seep into the cracked asphalt. 

“Cool. Great. _Awesome._ ” 

He kicked the pieces into a pothole and heard a child’s voice in his mind.

_What kind of asshole leaves a pile of broken glass on the ground?_

This one, apparently.

“Fuck you, Derry, and the state of Maine, and _your fucking infrastructure_ ,” Richie cursed as he stumbled along the crumbling road, likely unpaved since the days he and his friends aimlessly rode their bikes.

They once dreamed of being orphaned vagabonds, for hours on end, pedaling towards a bigger brighter future. Now they were all parentless, wandering, looking for meaning and seeing nothing but a steep cliff with no water to break their fall.

Nobody rode bikes in Derry anymore. There were a lot of things missing from his hometown. And from the world.

Eddie was dead. And he couldn’t fucking handle it.

Maybe he didn’t exist in Richie’s memory for twenty-seven agonizing years, but judging from the men that made him weak in the knees, Eddie sure had a cozy home nestled in his subconscious. It’d be impossible to shake him now.

_Right?_

Richie can’t recall what happens next. But he remembers his vision blurring, making his steps harder to land, slipping on his shoelace, the twisting of his foot. Everything became fog, as if the world blinked out of existence. Or maybe he did.

A familiar voice calls his name. And Richie calls back in desperation.

\---

Something burst through his skull like a single sonic boom. Dazed, he lifted his head from its cricked position, but instead of asphalt he found worn bedding, pilling from too many washes.

He turned over in bed — And a figure loomed over him.

“Fuck!” he yelped.

“ _Richie_ ,” whispered the voice again.

He scrambled for his glasses. As he put them on his face a very worried Bill came into focus.

“Shit, dude,” Richie hissed as he slumped back. “I thought you were the clown.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s OK, I just…” He noticed the chair beside the bed and looked back at Bill. “Are you watching me sleep?”

“Yeah, I needed to make sure that you were OK.”

“That’s romantic,” Richie deflected.

Bill chuckled. “Well, hate to burst your bubble, but between you and Ben we’ve all been taking our shifts.”

Richie sat up again. “What? What happened to Ben?”

“Same thing that happened to you.”

He felt woozy and dehydrated, just like every night after a victorious set. Or a disastrous one. “Well, I guess the big guy knows how to party.”

“How are you feeling?”

Richie exhaled through taut lips. “I’m fine, like, considering. Everything.” Bill looked at him skeptically. “Seriously, I’m fine. I just had a really weird dream and I feel a little… hungover.”

“I’m not surprised. You had a rougher time than the rest of us,” Bill said.

Richie gave him a weak smile and there was a beat of silence between them. “We killed that fucking clown, right?” he then asked. “I didn’t make that up?”

Bill laughed softly. “Yeah. Which is why you should lie down.” 

Richie obeyed. There was something buried deep within him to do so for Bill, even after all these decades of separation and lost memory.

“You’ve always been a good friend, man,” Richie said. “I mean, fuck, you waited by my bedside and everything.” Another laugh slipped out from Bill. “I’m sorry I spent so much of our childhood being a little shit.”

Bill smiled back, and it was kind and full of that boyish valor he’d always had. “With you, life was never dull.”

An urge struck him and words almost escaped. To come out from the closet that Derry had trapped him in. He felt he could trust Bill the most, that Bill would understand and still love him all the same. Then he could work on healing. He could be free. 

Richie would show that fucking _demon_ that had taken sweet brave Eddie away that love was not a shameful weakness.

“Bill, I need to tell you my secret.”

He teared up once Bill sat on the bed and gently took his hand. “What secret?”

“So, uh… I’ve always felt a little different and—”

A scream shook the halls. Richie scrambled upwards but Bill pushed him back down.

“Rest,” Bill demanded. “I got it. We’ll talk later.”

“What’s going—”

“Ben,” he replied.

Bill opened the door and Richie heard people clamoring in another bedroom across the way.

“The fuck —” Richie shouted over the noise. “Are you having an exorcism?”

“He’s probably coming out of it,” Bill said over his shoulder.

Richie sat up further. “Out of what?”

Bill waved the question away and left the room. The door swung behind him, but bounced against the latch. Richie craned his neck as the scene was slowly revealed. All hands on deck trying to wrangle another.

He began untangling himself from the blankets. _Fuck,_ his head hurt, but the adrenaline shot through him with each shout. He needed to know what the hell was going on.

The floor creaked once he reached the open door. Mike appeared and put a hand on his shoulder. “Hey, man, you should be in bed.”

“Excuse me?” He tried to see into the room. “Did we drink too much last night or did something happen?”

Mike swallowed. “It’s the Deadlights, man.”

“Ben got _Deadlights’d?_ When?” Richie asked.

“When everyone got split up.”

Richie blinked and struggled to recall the previous night. “Holy shit,” he whispered. All he remembered was that wall of fog. 

Mike finally allowed him to look inside the room. Ben was twisting in the sheets, muttering nonsense. Beverly tried to hold his wrists down as Bill stopped him from kicking his bruised feet into the bed frame. 

“He’s flailing again —” she stammered, “I can’t —”

Mike rushed in to help Bill keep Ben flat on the mattress.

Beverly raised her head. “Can someone bring me more cold towels? I used up all the ones in here and my room.”

Mike looked around. “Ah shit, I forgot Eddie’s gone.”

Richie’s stomach dropped. “I-I can get them.”

“No, lie down,” Bill demanded.

“I can get them!” Richie insisted, grabbing ones by the door. “Fuck, I’m hungover, not helpless.”

He stormed out of the room feeling patronized and sick with loss and _goddamn_ his head was pounding _._

_Just don’t think about it. Think about Ben, think about now._

Richie went for the first open door, tromping into the bathroom, but immediately stopped short.

There were fresh towels inside. And Eddie’s blood, still spattered on the bathroom floor and walls.

Fuck. _Fuck._

He met eyes with his blurring reflection in the red-flecked mirror and saw a shell of a man. Someone who already looked dead and embalmed, like his life had ended along with Eddie’s. 

Richie pressed the damp towel into his face to center himself, but jerked it away in disgust as the stench of sweat engulfed him.

“ _Fuck_ , Ben, you reek,” he muttered as he doused it again, this time with soap.

Well, whatever was happening with Ben, Richie would make sure they didn’t lose another club member. Four was a cursed number in some countries, and he was gonna need all the friends he could keep.

He stumbled back in a slight stupor. “I got the—”

“Bev,” Ben murmured. “Beverly. Please.”

“I think he’s coming out of it,” Beverly said as she accepted the towels.

“That’s what you said last time and then he threw up on me,” Mike groaned.

Richie made a bee-line towards the back corner so he wouldn’t suffer the same fate. Bill eyed him with question. 

“Projectile vomit is common in exorcisms,” Richie joked. Beverly flashed him a glare. “Yeah, uncalled for, you’re right,” he muttered.

“C’mon, Ben,” Mike urged. “You can do this.”

“Beverly?” Ben called again. Mike looked to her and made a beckoning gesture.

“I’m here, Ben,” she said as she blotted his face. “Come back to me.”

Ben’s eyes flew open with a gasp and he pushed himself up. The other three attending to him grabbed hold to keep him steady. His gaze rolled around the room as if they could not focus and he mumbled unintelligibly.

“Ben, it’s OK,” Bill said. 

“Just relax, breathe,” Beverly added.

He slowly turned to her. “Bev?” he asked, as if shocked.

“Hey, how are you—”

Ben burst into tears and clutched her arm. She wrapped her other around him, and he buried his face in her shoulder.

“I had this horrible dream,” Ben sobbed. “I thought you were dead.”

“No. No, everything’s fine,” Beverly whispered. “You’re fine.”

“We’re all fine now,” Bill said.

Richie’s chewed nails sunk into the doorframe. “Yeah, sure. Maybe _you’re_ all fine.”

Bill turned to him again. “Richie, go lie down.”

“No,” he said defiantly, “I’m going downstairs to have a drink.”

“It better be non-alcoholic—”

“Bill, don’t tell me what to do,” Richie said, raising his voice slightly. “Don’t tell me how to cope. I’m not fine.”

Ben looked around, disoriented. “Did something happen while I…”

Richie felt the loss choking him. “It’s like no one cares that Eddie’s not here. Or Stan. It’s like no one cares about _my_ feelings—”

“Richie, that’s not true,” Beverly said.

“His blood is all over the bathroom _still_ , it’s like no one gives a shit.”

“OK, Rich.” Mike got to his feet. “Take it easy, I— I can go clean it up.”

“I’m sorry,” Beverly said. Her eyes seemed puffed and bruised. “We’ve been really busy looking after you and Ben — It didn’t seem like a priority.”

“No one’s coming to hurt us anymore,” Bill added in a calm tone.

Richie pinched his brow. “I’m going downstairs to get a drink — _I’m gonna get some fucking 7-Up, Bill.”_ He found his composure. “I feel like shit. I wanna die. Please do _not_ bother me.”

“If you need anything, just holler up,” Mike said diplomatically. “We’re here for you. Always.”

Richie sighed. “Thank you, Mike.” He took a breath. “Sorry for being a dick. Feel better soon, Ben.”

“OK,” Ben said deliriously.

\---

He couldn’t remember much after Eddie’s death, except the quarry, and the bridge, and the crumbling road out. Even that was a fuzzy pounding in his head. And Ben seemed fine last time they were together… 

“So what the fuck happened?” he asked himself.

Richie cracked open a cold can of soda and chugged it to stop anything from coming back up. As a comic he’d had more than his fair share of regrets, remorse, anxiety, and pain. He’d gone through nasty breakups, ones that left him empty and numb. But he could always pick himself up and try again.

There was no recovery from a loss like this.

He spied a bottle of Midori on the bar counter.

“Hello foul temptress.”

A little shot wouldn’t hurt. He picked it up and rattled it around. The silence was earsplitting.

“Well. That explains the blackout,” he grumbled as he tossed it in the bin.

Richie slumped down in an armchair and held the soda can to his forehead. With every pang of his temples and his stomach came flashes of his final moments with Eddie.

He had the guy in his arms. Why couldn’t he had just told him then? Told him _anything?_

_I love you, Eds. I’ll always be yours. Eddie, you’re everything. You make me whole._

He whispered the words, just to know what they felt like. To taste them on his lips the way he would never taste Eddie’s.

Richie could’ve had him, for just a moment. But instead he let him slip through his fingers. From denial. But denial was a part of fear. And he knew nothing more intimately.

The tears started flowing again, and a wail escaped from the sides of his mouth like a kettle boiling over with emotion. He couldn’t take it. He just _couldn’t._

Big Ben had his even bigger crush on Bev, and they got to have each other. _Everyone_ had an infatuation with Bill, and he and Mike seemed to have a newly special connection.

“ _What the fuck do I have?_ ” Richie sputtered.

There was a slamming noise. But not from upstairs. Richie drew in a breath and held it as he listened. He could hear shuffling outside.

Richie cautiously tiptoed to the doorway. Another slam, and mutters. He could see a form at the front door and the handles shook.

“G-Guys?” Fear grabbed him by the throat. The nightmare was not over. “There… Someone’s—”

The door swung open with force and Richie jumped backwards, arms at the ready — Not to throw punches but to cower.

“Fuck, shit, _shit,_ ” said a voice. Then there was a loud sound hitting the floor.

Richie looked down and saw a grocery bag of medical supplies spilling onto the ground. His eyes moved up from Gucci loafers, to wrinkled slacks, to an unevenly buttoned cardigan.

“Jesus _fuck_ , you scared me,” Eddie wheezed.

“Eddie,” Richie whispered back.

Beautiful sweet Eddie seemed as bewildered as Richie felt inside. Eddie swallowed before crouching down to clean the strewn items.

“I got the—” He took a sharp breath. “You weren’t waking up, you were just in and out, _yelling_ and shit — I got the fucking smelling salts, I got… I got a ton of random shit, I—”

“Eddie,” Richie said again.

He shot up. “What, what do you need?” Eddie asked, concern in his brow and bottles in his arms. “Electrolytes? Vitamin C?”

Richie took a staggered step forward. His trembling hands enveloped and then cradled Eddie’s face, thumb tracing along crows feet and gingerly across a fresh bandage on his cheek.

“You… uh…” Eddie’s eyes darted. “Why— Why are you being weird? Do you… Are you still in it — I got smelling salts.”

“Is this a dream?” Richie whispered.

Now his brow twisted in confusion. “You — No — You’re still in it,” Eddie turned to look at the staircase. “Hey Bill, he’s still in it!”

“No. I… I watched you die.”

Eddie snapped to attention as the color drained from his face. “Oh shit, like in the Deadlights?” he said quietly. “Like Bev did?”

“No, no, I…” Richie screwed his eyes shut. “In the cavern, It killed you — _Impaled_ — I held you…” He opened them and took in the impossible sight. “You died in my fucking arms, man.”

Eddie blinked back and then shook his head rapidly. “No, I — _You_ were fucking dead, man. I like…” He sucked in his cheeks. “I had to drag you out of there but you’re so goddamn heavy, like, me _and_ Bill had to _physically drag you_. We didn’t even know if you were alive.”

Richie’s jaw locked and imprisoned within it all those poetic words his mourning heart had crafted. Instead of a grown man who’d come to grips with what he was, he became that scared little boy once more, unable to understand why Eddie’s dark eyes hypnotized him so.

Mike looked down the staircase. “Oh thank God you’re back. Richie was causing a scene without you.”

“Yeah, I uh…” Eddie tore his gaze away from Richie’s. “H-He hallucinated a bunch of shit in the Deadlights, but he’s OK now. How’s Ben?”

“He’s fine,” Mike said, relief clear in his voice. “His shower's full of clean-up rags, so he’s gonna use yours.”

“Cool, I just…” Eddie shrugged stiffly. “I bled all over it—”

“I know.”

“OK.”

Mike disappeared back into the bedroom. Eddie swallowed and awkwardly picked up the grocery bag.

“Well I just blew like, sixty bucks at the shop for nothing —” He jiggled a bottle in Richie’s face — “You want some naproxen?”

\---

Whiplash didn’t quite cover the emotions Richie felt, sitting here across from his one true love that he believed to be dead. OTC pain medication and antacid dissolved in his churning stomach as Eddie organized his drugstore spoils into neat rows.

“Feeling any better?” Eddie asked, apparently feeling Richie’s eyes boring into him.

“Yeah. Like, a thousand percent,” Richie said, in a daze.

“So you were, like, having bad dreams and shit?”

“Just the one. A very long, vivid, fucked up dream,” Richie said hoarsely. “Like, I… I don’t even know if this is real cause like… it felt _real_.”

Eddie pursed his lips and looked up tentatively. “Was I the, uh… The only one who died?”

Richie nodded. “Yeah and like… it was _fucked up_ dude, because it was like no one cared but me. They like… They were all hugging and kissing and I was just…” His voice dropped off as Eddie raised his brows. He couldn’t reveal too much. 

“Alone?” Eddie suggested. Richie sniffled and cleared his throat. “You alright?”

“Yeah, I just…” He flapped a hand, “I had some 7-Up earlier — I drank too fast and it went up my nose.”

Eddie chuckled. “Same old Richie.”

“No, I’m different,” he said soberly, and Eddie took note. “I mean. I’m actually the same, but in a different way. Because I understand it now.” He clenched his pant leg. “You don’t know how the same I am. Because I never told you.”

That wasn’t quite an eloquent confession, but boy it was the best he could do.

Eddie nodded slowly. “Hey, should we get you back to bed, maybe?” he said as if speaking to a child. “Should you be lying down?”

“Eds.”

He immediately looked annoyed. “I don’t want to be a nag, but _Jesus Christ, Richie._ You had me up all night — You kept calling for me —” He rubbed the back of his head. “I mean, I understand why _now_ — But that was not restful sleep, for either of us. I have this fucking crick in my neck from that chair, it’s been bugging me all day…”

Richie gave a small smile. “You stayed with me all night?”

“Yeah. I —” He frowned and looked away. “‘Cause you were calling me, and if you woke up I wanted to make sure I was there. And because you’re an annoying motherfucker, but I love you, man.”

Richie’s breath hitched in his throat, and Eddie’s gaze locked back onto his. 

Deflect. _Deflect, dammit._

“If you love me so much, why didn’t you send someone else to go to the drugstore? So I didn’t have a fucking meltdown.”

Eddie let an amused scoff. “Because I’m a hypochondriac, Richie. You think I would send one of them out there? They’d fuck it up and then I’d have to leave and do it myself.” 

“Control freak,” Richie teased softly.

“It’s a survival tactic. You’ve never made anything easy for me. It’s even hard to laugh at your jokes.” He stared back when Richie said nothing. “Uh, you’re supposed to tell me to fuck off. Did you forget our thing?”

“I don’t want you to fuck off. I want you to stay here.”

“When did you get so fucking sappy?” He smiled and there was no ire in it. In fact, it was warmer than any Richie had seen from him before.

“Hey, do you… Do you want to know what you last words were?” Richie asked, and he leaned forward in his seat. “As I… held you in my arms like _the hero_ I am.”

Eddie snorted and moved towards him as well. “Sure.” His eyes carried an anxious curiosity, like watching the burning fuse on a new firecracker.

“You said you fucked my mom,” Richie said.

Eddie laughed. “ _Ow,_ my stitches — _Fuck,_ ” he groaned, but continued giggling. “You made that up, you asshole.”

“I’m dead fucking serious, that’s what you said,” Richie said, smiling as he felt tears welling up.

“That sounds nothing like me,” Eddie said.

“I know. I know,” Richie wiped his eyes before Eddie could see. “I should’ve fucking known right then and there it wasn’t real.”

Eddie seemed pleased. “I’m like… totally flattered though.” He scratched his brow. “That your subconscious nightmare thought my death was that dramatically important.”

He didn’t know the half of it.

“You know, the hardest thing about that dream was…” Richie swallowed it back, trying not to reveal too much. “When we got the club back together I kept thinking about how we had all the time in the world ahead of us. Like, that weird optimism that we had as kids? And then you died and like… I don’t want a life that doesn’t have you in it.”

“You can stop speaking about me in the past tense, I’m right here,” Eddie said, and Richie nodded quickly. “I’m also _really fucking tired._ ”

“Yeah. I… I’m feeling it too.”

“I can tell. Like, when the fuck does Richie Tozier get weepy?”

Richie’s courage lived in hypotheticals. He couldn’t admit straight to Eddie’s face what he was, or who he’d been these past decades, or how far his love went. But he could ask him one question.

“Do you wanna nap with me? Like old times?” Richie took a breath, unable to meet Eddie’s eye. “Y’know. Just so I don’t wake up thinking you’re dead again.”

Eddie chuckled. “For old times’ sake? Sure, why not?” He stood and offered up his arm. “But you got to hold on to me tight, OK?”

Richie didn’t know what it meant, nor did he care. He _would_ hold tight to Eddie and never let go again.

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know if I'll write any more of this but I left it open ended because I like ambiguity I didn't want to bore people. I also wanted to try out a weird fix-it that didn't involve Eddie in the hospital.
> 
> Plugging [my main blog](http://television-for-dinner.tumblr.com/tagged/fic+stuff), my [my art/fanworks blog](http://tommytonebender.tumblr.com) where you can check my sidebar for more info about my work. I also have a [Writing Twitter](http://https://twitter.com/retr0vertig0)


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